How A Ten Year Old Shows Her Love

Despite the fact that I really hate to celebrate my birthday (it just gives me no pleasure at all; I know that's strange, but it's the truth), my good-hearted daughter Supermangirl wanted to "do something special" for me last week. So she locked herself in her room for 30 minutes and hatched a plan to make me happy by giving me all of my favorite things.
These included:
a cheese sandwich ("because everyone likes cheese")
ten pictures that she removed from our photo album ("so you could see what your life has been like")
a picture she drew of SpongeBob Squarepants (no explanation necessary)
and $2.68 in pennies ("this is all the money I have in the world and I want you to have it")
Best damn birthday present I ever got.

Happy July 4th!!!

In keeping with the tradition of giving credit where credit is due, I'd like to give a special shout out to three historic dudes who helped make this wonderful country possible:


Ben, George, & Thomas

Enjoy your barbeques and fireworks, everyone!

A Summary Of The News...For Dumb People

For those of you who live here in the States, you may be feeling confused or overwhelmed by the nonstop, 24-hour coverage of all the Very Important Things that have happened here over the past week. Thank God that that the news outlets have been providing us with enough in-depth analysis, "exclusive late-breaking reports', celebrity and talking head interviews, and medical and legal experts to help us make sense of it all. But for anyone out there who feels that he/she could benefit from some simplification, SuperRaizy is proud to present:

A Summary of the News... For Dumb People
1) Michael Jackson has died. Died. D-I-E-D. (Did you hear me? Should I repeat it?)
2) We are all endlessly sad, shocked, and devastated that Michael Jackson has died.
3) The following people are particularly sad, shocked, and devastated that Michael Jackson has died: Elizabeth Taylor, Liza Minelli, Deepak Chopra, Marlon Brando's son, Corey Feldman (WTF?), and Rabbi Shmuely Boteach (who I hear is currently in Iceland for some reason.)
4) The following people are pretending to be sad, shocked, and devastated but really aren't: the doctor who gave him Demerol shots every day for no reason and thus probably caused him to go into cardiac arrest; the plastic surgeon who made millions chopping off Jackson's nose and who might be the biological father of two of his children; Joe Jackson, who doesn't seem to be the least perturbed that his son has just died; and the Reverend Al Sharpton, who keeps appearing on CNN despite the fact he has no connection to this story whatsoever.
*****Are you still with me, people?*****
5) Before he died, Jackson was emaciated, weak, and bald. Or maybe he was upbeat, optimistic, and in great shape. He left behind an enormous fortune. Or maybe he left behind enormous debt. His family is united in their grief and want to protect and raise his children. Or maybe they are fractured and fighting and only want custody of the kids so they can control his estate.
6) The man has been dead for almost a full week and he has still not been buried. He looked so ghastly and frightening when he was alive, can you imagine what he looks like now?
7) Oh, yeah. Some other stuff happened this week, too. Something about Bernie Madoff being sentenced, a coup in Honduras, fighting in Afghanistan, an important Supreme Court decision, yada yada yada. And some other famous people died too. And I think that the Governor of South Carolina might have done something that he wasn't supposed to do. But I'm not really sure.

Be Good Be Smart Be Safe Behave

And they're off!
My kids, that is. Well, two of them, anyway.
Flash is spending the summer working as a counselor at an MO bungalow colony in upstate NY, and Wonderwoman is spending three weeks at a girls camp in Pennsylvania.
The past week was crazy, full of shopping, labeling, packing, and... talking.
This is the first time that either child has been away from home for so long, and so I gave them all the standard Mommy lectures. Behave yourself. Follow the rules. Keep yourself and your surroundings clean. Watch your mouth and treat others with respect. Don't forget to write.
That pretty much covered it for Wonderwoman. She's in a safe, highly supervised, religious environment. But Flash, who's 15, will be living in "the counselor's bungalow", along with a bunch of other dopey teenagers and a much lower level of supervision. He'll be around kids who are older than him, kids who may have different value systems, and- the dreaded G word- girls. Lots more opportunity to get into trouble there.
Now, I trust Flash a lot. If I didn't, I wouldn't have let him go. He's a smart, respectful, responsible kid who's pretty good at telling right from wrong and sticking to his guns when he needs to. And there are rules for the counselors- no girls in the boy's bungalow and vice versa, a reasonable curfew, no leaving the colony without permission, and a zero tolerance policy for drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes. AND my good friend is at the colony with her family, and she has promised to keep an eye on him as well.
But still. As much as I trust Flash, he's still a teenage boy, and even the brightest teenage boy can be a real doofus sometimes. So he was the lucky recipient of even more Mommy lectures, about drinking and smoking and girls and peer pressure and making smart decisions and staying out of trouble. And he listened to it all so patiently.
And then it was time for him to leave. As I gave him an enormous hug, he whispered in my ear, "Any last words of wisdom, Ma?" For a moment, words failed me. And then I whispered back, "Be good. Be smart. Be safe. Behave." He kissed me and walked out the door. At the last minute, I realized that I forgot to say "Be happy." But it's OK. He knows that, too.

"All Our Icons Are Dying"

The phone rang about an hour ago.
I picked it up and heard my friend's voice saying "Raizy, all our childhood icons are dying."
"I know", I said. "I heard about Farrah Fawcett."
She hesitated. "Michael Jackson just died, too."
I gasped. "Get outta here. Really?"
"Yes", she said. "What do you think that means?"
"I think it means that we're old and are also rapidly hurtling towards death."
"No way", she snorted. "I'm not hurtling anywhere."
Good for her, I guess. But we're all hurtling, whether she likes it or not.

It Makes Me Sad When Blond Women Die

I feel so sad that Farrah Fawcett died.
I also felt so sad when Anna Nicole Smith and Natasha Richardson died.

Is that strange?

A Mom's Ode to Sleepaway Camp (Non-Rhyming)

Packing the kids up for camp.
Have bought dozens and dozens of pairs of socks.
Dufflebags litter the floor.
I am labeling things in my sleep.

The time, the effort, the expense
(Oh! the cursed expense!)
Is it worth it for a mere few weeks of solitude?
You bet your ass it is.

Ilana Davita's Mesorah Project

Ilana-Davita has very kindly posted my submission to her Mesorah Project.
To learn more about the Mesorah Project and to submit an essay, go here.

The Daily Show Visits Iran

I apologize for the advertisement at the beginning of the clip- I don't know how to get rid of it.

This is very funny:

Old Jokes That Still Make Me Laugh

Received via e-mail:
(With apologies to the unknown author from whom this was plagiarized)

10 Things You Didn't Learn In Hebrew School:
1) The High Holidays have absolutely nothing to do with marijuana.
2) A shmata is a dress that your husband's ex is wearing.
3) One mitzvah can change the world; two will just make you tired.
4) Anything worth saying is worth repeating a thousand times.
5) Never leave a restaurant empty-handed.
6) Always whisper the names of diseases.
7) If it tastes good, it's probably not kosher.
8) The important Jewish holidays are the ones on which alternate side of the street parking is suspended.
9) If you have to ask the price, you can't afford it. But if you can afford it, make sure to tell everyone what you paid.
10) If it's nobody's business, you can be sure that everybody already knows about it.